Saturday, May 05, 2007

Bush Bada Bing Bilks America Blind

"Iraq Was Awash in Cash. We Played Football With Bricks of $100 Bills"

by Callum Macrae and Ali FadhilThe Guardian UKAt the beginning of the Iraq war, the UN entrusted $23bn of Iraqi money to the US-led coalition to redevelop the country. With the infrastructure of the country still in ruins, where has all that money gone?Callum Macrae and Ali Fadhil report on one of the greatest financial scandals of all time.In a dilapidated maternity and paediatric hospital in Diwaniyah, 100 miles south of Baghdad, Zahara and Abbas, premature twins just two days old, lie desperately ill. The hospital has neither the equipment nor the drugs that could save their lives. On the other side of the world, in a federal courthouse in Virginia, US, two men--one a former CIA agent and Republican candidate for Congress, the other a former army ranger--are found guilty of fraudulently obtaining $3m (£1.7m) intended for the reconstruction of Iraq. These two events have no direct link, but they are none the less products of the same thing: a financial scandal that in terms of sheer scale must rank as one of the greatest in history.

(check out BCCI, Bush and SNL scandal for the second greatest financial scandal of all time)

At the start of the Iraq war, around $23bn-worth of Iraqi money was placed in the trusteeship of the US-led coalition by the UN. The money, known as the Development Fund for Iraq and consisting of the proceeds of oil sales, frozen Iraqi bank accounts and seized Iraqi assets, was to be used in a "transparent manner", specified the UN, for "purposes benefiting the people of Iraq".

...Another experienced health worker, Mary Patterson--who was eventually asked to leave Iraq by James Haveman--characterises the Coalition's approach thus: "I believe it had a lot to do with showing that the US was in control," she says. "I believe that it had to do with rewarding people that were politically loyal. So rather than being a technical agenda, I believe it was largely a politically motivated reward-and-punishment kind of agenda."

...One CPA official was given nearly $7m and told to spend it in seven days. "He told our auditors that he felt that there was more emphasis on the speed of spending the money than on the accountability for that money," says Ginger Cruz, the deputy inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction. Not all coalition officials were so honest. Last month Robert Stein Jr, employed as a CPA comptroller in south central Iraq, despite a previous conviction for fraud, pleaded guilty to conspiring to steal more than $2m and taking kickbacks in the form of cars, jewellery, cash and sexual favours. It seems certain he is only the tip of the iceberg. There are a further 50 criminal investigations under way. (complete article may be read at: yannone.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_archive.html

With a faith based money laundry, and a corrupt, drug-running CIA, nothing much will change in America unless the people, like Israel - STAND and demand this corrupt, criminally incompetent, treasonous lot resign, be indicted and stand trial.

Congress is clearly two wings of the same bird intent on defending a corrupt corporate dictatorship of America.

Each election is a corporate show where the public has a choice between which right wing corporate hack you want to choose torob you. COME ON. Let's have a REAL election with some people from a real left platform and see how free America is. Any freely elected leader who happened to be socialist was assassinated by the CIA/SOA in South America, and indigenous people were driven off their land while American oil and mining companies steal THEIR natural resources. No wonder Chavez nationalized the oil in Venezuala - if Americans had any power as people so would they.